The Muscarovitch fly pattern. Photo and fly courtesy of SFBCA member T. Gordon

Looking for a fly pattern that produces big browns? Check out the Muscarovitch, a fly pattern developed by Gord Deval, President of the Scarborough Fly and Bait Casting Association.

To be honest, the fly is based on The McStarkovitch, a pattern designed by Jimmy Stark, a well known Toronto fly tier and a co-worker of Gords at Brownies Tackle and Gun Shop back in the 50’s. According to Gord, one of his improvements was the addition of polar bear which helps the fly to sink a bit.

Muscarovitch materials:

size 4 or 6 streamer hook

8 inches or so of bright orange polyester yarn

tinsel: medium flat and small oval

Gray squirrel tail

black tying thread

4 or 5 long, straight polar bear hairs

Badger hackle

To Tie the Muscarovitch:

lay down a body of black thread from the eye to just before the bend in the hook.

tie in the oval tinsel at the back of the thread base

tie in the flat tinsel at the back of the thread base

double the yarn. Tie in 1/8 from the eye to the rear (you’ll now have the two loose ends of the yarn at the end for wrapping)

wrap the two loose ends of the yarn back to the eye and secure..

give the yarn a brushing to pull out some of the fibres (makes it look more buggy)

wrap flat tinsel towards eye and secure (4 or 5 wraps)

Wrap oval tinsel on top of flat tinsel and secure

Tie in a small amount of squirrel for the wing

Tie in 4 or 5 straight polar bear hairs on top of the wing (should extend just beyond end of wing)

Tie on a the badger hackle and whip finish. Done

To fish the Muscarovitch, toss it upstream and let it dead drift past some logs where browns are hiding.